MISINFORMATION ON DRUG CRIME

Editor:

Re: Soft on crime, TIMES Mailbag, Jan. 13, 2006

I don't know why your paper would bother to publish it, since it is so
clearly a silly and intentional distortion and nothing more.

Crime and drugs are serious issues. Making them into silly political
footballs like Aaron Vaughan does just adds one more small piece to
the great load of cynicism about our democratic system of government.

When people see that it's just a fool's game of misquotation and
deception, rather like the latest wave of Liberal party TV attack ads,
they begin to think the whole thing is a joke and voter turnout heads
downwards.

I, for one, am concerned about some Conservative proposals, to close
down the safe injection site in Vancouver and to prohibit others from
opening in Victoria and Toronto, and to keep possession of small
amounts of marijuana a criminal offence.

By following the example of the Bush administration's approach to drug
policy, where it's actually been seriously proposed that every
university and college student face mandatory random drug urine
testing as a deterrent, I believe a Harper government will set back
the cause of rational drug policy by many years.

These proposals, actually made by Mr. Harper and his party, are things
that need to be discussed between now and next Monday.

Rod Smelser

Maple Ridge